


It’s Too Late

by Hay389



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Angst, Blood and Injury, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Insight to Doug’s Mind, What Led him to Dying in the Woods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28412394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hay389/pseuds/Hay389
Summary: As Doug opens and closes his eyes for the last time on this earth, all he can think is he deserves to die.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	It’s Too Late

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So, I have no clue where this came from lol. This actually wasn’t the first 9-1-1 story I planned on posting but when inspiration hits it hits. Of course I am absolutely obsessed with Maddie and Chimney, but I was just thinking about the episode Fight or Flight and was asking myself what could have happened to Doug to get him to the point he was at, and then this story happened. This one shot is kind of just some insight on what his mind could have been thinking about, of course most of it is made up lol. Hope you enjoy it!

As soon as he felt the knife plunge into his back not once, not twice, but three times, Doug knew he was dead before he even hit the ground. He choked, blood splattering down his face, as Maddie rolled him off of her onto the cold snow covered ground. And in that couple of seconds he lay there, he knew this is exactly what he had asked for. 

It’s true, how they say when you die your life flashes before your eyes, because he could see every big memorable moment in his life flash by like a slideshow with every slow blink he took. 

His childhood is his first memory, a very dark one at that. While his mother absolutely doted on him, his father was a whole different story. His father was an abusive man who could never really do good despite being a doctor himself. So many nights Doug can remember spending time watching movies, or baking, or swimming in the pool they had out back with his mom who didn’t have a single ounce of evil in her being. They would laugh and enjoy life, just for his father to come home in a drunken state and shatter what seemed like a perfect world to him. Doug would run to his room and lock his door, listening as his father shouted at his mom for being no good, throwing and breaking anything in his sight. He would emerge when everything quieted down and find his mom standing in the bathroom dabbing at her split lip with a wet paper towel and holding an ice pack to her eye with her other hand. She would always catch him standing there in the mirror and smile back at him as if everything was okay. Doug knew nothing was okay. He hated his dad with every ounce of his being and vowed after each abusive session he would never be like him. 

He never lived up to that though, as he sat at the kitchen table his senior year of high school with an acceptance letter to college for a medical degree he never wanted to achieve in the first place. Really, he wanted to be a teacher just like his mom was. He saw first hand how her first graders lit up with excitement every morning she entered the classroom for another day of learning and fun, and he wanted to be able to elicit that type of reaction from his own set of students. Doug wanted to make a difference in a way that could impact the future generations so they themselves had a chance to grow up and be whatever they put their minds to. He wanted to guide young minds on the right path and teach them how to really make a difference in the world.

His father snickered at him when he told him that, telling him that wanting to take care of bratty, snotty, nosed 6 year olds for 6 hours a day everyday wasn’t something to be proud of and was the dumbest career path anyone could go down. Doug wanted to argue that wasn’t true, that his mother is a respected teacher who helps more people then he ever will as a doctor, but he bit his tongue. Saying such things would earn him a slap across the face or much worse. So, that’s why as he moved into the college dorm he found himself heading the route of a doctor. The only real choice his father allowed him was what type of doctor he wanted to be, so he chose a cardiothoracic surgeon, although it didn’t really matter in the end what he chose. He didn’t want any of it.

It was during his junior year of college, while he was trying to drink away his problems at a frat party, when he spotted Maddie Buckley.

Doug swears he has never seen a more beautiful girl in his life, so much so he had to do a double take to make sure she was actually real and standing only 6 feet away from him with a matching red solo cup in her hand. He thanked the universe for such perfect timing then downed the last of his beer before making his way over to talk to her. She smiled up at him when he came into view looking a little shy. He remembers using some dumb line that he can’t quite remember exactly what he had said, but knows it was somewhere along the lines of, “Why is a pretty girl like you standing here all by yourself.” 

It worked though. She had laughed at just how dumb it was and introduced herself. They talked for the rest of the night, and Doug couldn’t believe it when she said she was actually in the medical field as well, studying to become a nurse. That’s when he thought maybe becoming a doctor wouldn’t be so bad. They exchanged numbers on their flip phones and the rest was history. She became his girlfriend and for a while they were happy. 

Then he proposed, and everything after that seemed to change in what could only be described as the beginning of the end. Doug became super protective of Maddie, and in a way, really only wanted her for himself. He didn’t want to share her with anyone, not even her younger brother Evan, because he didn’t want any chance of Maddie falling through the cracks of his fingers and being the girl who got away. His dad always told him no one would be stupid enough to love someone as disappointing as him, but his father was wrong. Maddie was living proof of that. But there was some small voice in the back of his mind telling him his father may have been right. And if that were true, then he really couldn’t let Maddie out of his sights. 

And she asked a lot, practically begging him just to allow her to go out one night with her coworkers or to drive the couple of hours to go visit her brother and see how he was doing. Occasionally he allowed it, but even then his trust slowly started to fizzle away. Her leaving left endless questions running through his mind, because the only thing that was clear was he couldn’t lose her. Doug could slowly see his wife transform into a once bright and fun girl into a sad and lonely woman, and at some point he supposes he just stopped caring. If Maddie Kendall is by his side still then nothing else matters. He provided her a nice house in the suburbs and anything outside of it was just clutter she didn’t need to waste her time on. 

And that led to his downfall, because her being by his side wasn’t the only thing that mattered. Far from it. His arrogance from being a damn good doctor and the blinding past of his childhood ended up being a very dangerous mixture.

Doug can still hear the very first time he had ever laid hands on Maddie, the slap so hard and sudden to her face that he split her bottom lip open and left her in tears. It was over something stupid, too, he recalls. Maddie dropped and broke one of their better plates, the ones they used whenever they had company, and his anger flared at the fact everything was now ruined and would no longer be perfect like it should have been. And that perfection only came from his own father wanting everything to be perfect, and if it wasn’t, you suffered the consequences. 

That slap had most certainly shocked Maddie, as her sudden gasp of pain was clear in the eerily silent dining room, but it definitely shocked him. Never had he ever laid his hands on another person out of fear he would one day become the very thing he destained, and then there he was with a crying wife holding her hand to her lip. It was like looking in a mirror.

And once he started he couldn’t stop. Doug couldn’t quite explain what happened, but it was as if something snapped in him that day. He wasn’t sure if it was the realization that he was exactly like his father whether he wanted to be or not and it was too late to change directions, or the fact he was just so bitter at the cruel joke the world played on him that he couldn’t help but drag someone down with him, that he continued to hit Maddie. And as the years ticked by the beatings only got worse, so much so that he not only beat her to the point where she was bleeding, but he had also destroyed their whole living room and newly decorated Christmas tree. 

He knew things weren’t good, especially then, but when he came home one day and Maddie suddenly just vanished, her suitcase and personal belongings gone, a burning, raging, anger filled him. She didn’t get to do that. Maddie didn’t get to leave him and go be happy somewhere else without him. The only place his wife needed to be was here in Hershey by his side. And the minute he found her he would make sure she knew that, whether that be a final lesson or not was up to her. So he phoned the Buckley’s, of course knowing Maddie all too well that she would never run to her parents because he could easily find her there. 

No, he knew exactly where she had run to, and that was to her brother. Evan Buckley had always hated Doug. Even as a ten year old child Evan could see past the fake smiles he would throw to the boy’s parents and him. They easily butted heads, Maddie always intervening and defending Doug to her brother on why he was a good guy. Doug could care less though about what his wife’s younger brother thought of him, especially with the eight year difference. All he knew though, in the end, he managed to break the bond between them. And that always put a smile on his face. 

On the other hand, Maddie’s parents were easily fooled by his good looks and charms and absolutely loved him. That he made sure of. So it was with ease he found himself ending that phone call with an address that belonged to Evan Buckley in Los Angeles, California. All he had to do was explain that Maddie wanted to surprise Buck with a visit to LA, but for the life of her couldn’t remember what his address was and was admittedly too embarrassed to call them. 

So a few hours later he booked a flight from Hershey, Pennsylvania to L.A. to find Maddie. And boy oh boy what he found was not a pretty sight. He tracked his wife down with ease and followed her for a while, being slow to make a move. But everytime he watched her, some man was always with her. And seeing her lean in and kiss him, this man who wasn’t her husband, and smile like she wasn’t doing anything wrong was just the icing on the cake. So he purposely made himself run into this guy who introduced himself as Howie Han. In return, Doug introduced himself as Jason Bailey. And that was how he managed to find exactly where Maddie lived.

It was a slow and tedious process of having to pretend to be this guy’s friend and endure talking about his own wife with someone who probably already knew she was married and was still going out with her, but everything changed when Howie told him the exact day and time he planned to take Maddie out on their first date. Things couldn’t have gone any smoother. 

He showed up just before Chimney could make it to her front door and stabbed him, because no one else could have Maddie but him. She belonged to him and him only. He knocked lightly on her front door, for a moment questioning if he had made the right decision after spotting many cameras surrounding the area, but it was too late—afterall, there was a man currently bleeding out just a few feet away from him by his doing. He knew Maddie opened the door without checking by the huge grin that adorned her face, quickly replaced with fear and pain when she saw who was really at the door. She tried to shut him out as fast as she could but his strength overpowered her own. She went flying back onto the ground and slowly started to crawl backwards with every step he took towards her. She lifted herself off the ground and practically dived towards her phone in the living room but he couldn’t have that. 

There was no one left to help her, and she was coming home with him whether she liked it or not. So he yanked her back and her phone when flying out of her hand landing under the coffee table. He landed a punch to her face and forced her to stand up telling her if she didn’t come with him then he’d kill her right then and there, and her brother would be next. Maddie stopped struggling at the mention of that and allowed herself to be dragged out of the house, only to break down in tears at the sight of Chimney dead right outside her house. 

Doug really doesn’t understand when his life had gotten so twisted to the point he killed two innocent people and completely terrified another with just a simple wave. He was a doctor and it felt odd to take a life rather than save it, but it was almost like someone else had taken over his body when he saw Maddie had left...because what he was always afraid of came true. She didn’t want him anymore. And all he could see is his father smacking him around telling him no one would want him. 

And yet, his father was right. Maddie didn’t want him and it wasn’t because she had wanted to leave, but he left her no other option but to flee into the night like she did, because she knew one day he would beat her so hard without really thinking about what he was doing, and she’d end up 6 feet in the ground. 

And in that moment, lying on the ground having practically dragged his wife to death with him, Doug has never felt more like his own father than then. And if he had any more energy, and if he wasn’t currently dying in the woods, then he might throw up at the thought and run until he couldn’t run any longer. The quiet and peaceful silence in the air is broken by Maddie, who he can’t see, because his vision would be too blurred to anyway but the fact he isn’t facing her, he can hear her gasp in pain and still for a moment. Doug allows a tear to fall down at the sound of her retreating footsteps. Maddie had fought so hard and won, and in that moment he can’t help but wonder what his life would have been like if his own mother had had the same courage as his wife. If she stood up against her husband, or took him and fled into the night. That question will always stay a mystery though. 

As Doug opens and closes his eyes for the last time on this earth, all he can think is he deserves to die.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed the story. This is the first time I think I’ve ever written for the antagonist side of things and it was quite enjoyable to write. On another note, I do have more stories in the works for 9-1-1, and yes you better believe they are Maddie and Chimney stories because they are just so adorable and belong together. So be on the lookout for those. Until next time!


End file.
